City leaders in Las Vegas to pitch Davenport's gaming license -QCTimesFinally some progress on the effort to boot IOC out of Davenport and get a casino operator that actually maximizes the revenue from Davenport's gaming license. That is, I believe, the official requirement for the Riverboat Development Authority, and it isn't at all happening right now. When a casino operator admits publicly that your city is their secondary operation in the metro area, that is not maximizing revenue. When a casino operator closes more features of your city's casino every year, that is not maximizing revenue. When a casino operator signs an agreement to build a new hotel, give up parking lots, and tear down an eyesore abandoned restaurant, but doesn't do any of that, that's not maximizing anything for Davenport except riverfront ugliness.
Here's hoping the city will find someone interested in investing $150M or so in exchange for the right to have people willing show up to lose their money. Its not exactly a tough business to make a profit in. Out of the 3 locations suggested in the brochure, I like either the current site of the Ground Transportation Center, or the underused green space next to the River Center on 2nd Street. The current site of the abandoned Howard Johnson motel is good too, but its too disconnected from the downtown core. Maybe a certain City Administrator will provide us with a pdf file of the brochure to peruse. Anyway, good luck to the guys down in Vegas. The Mayor's been hinting at big plans for the casino for years now, so it'd be nice to see some real action.
Tomorrow: Hilltop District Conceptual Renderings
33 comments:
Yo man too bad they didn't take idiot joker image along on the taxpayer junket. Mud in the brakes.Carbon in the brains. The real election results.
Gibberish in the posts from the weirdo on Marquette.
Keith at 8:57?
Sorry, can't follow any of the comment at 8:57.
If there was a point to be made it missed.
The real election result was Carbon on the brain from the one that finished in last place, and could not even take is former ward.
QCI,
Your Keith bashing is getting a little old. Please grow up and drop it. When you do grow up and leave home things might seem a little brighter. Have a wonderful day!
Don't just limit options to downtown. It could move out to our new downtown on Elmore, or do like Jumers did in Rock Island, and move it out along the busy interstate. Make it easy; make it safe, and people will come.
Conservative Demo here:
Personally I'd prefer my city and state get out of the gambling business.
Gamblers and smokers are losers.
I like the Howard Johnson location, but would there be enough room for everything? Or as 12:45 said, maybe it would be better to move it out of the downtown area.
Conservative Demo, there's money to be made by the government with gambling. Government will hardly ever give up any of ITS money. After all, they need to buy votes.
Nitrous55
Anyone read this? It was in the Times the other day.
http://tinyurl.com/yzxmelw
I think maybe if a hotel and other amenities are attached, there may be some additional benefits, but overall the prospects are still grim. Good luck to Ohio.
One negative to a new operator might be that they would build a far superior event center next to a land based casino, and the River Center would be in even more dire straights than it is now. We are already heavily subsidizing the operation, and it would take even more money to keep afloat with competition with better amenities.
I'm not an againster, just pointing out a fact QCI.
Blackhawk Foundry announces its closing over a hundred people losing jobs around Christmas. The Mayor and City Administrator are in Vegas. Cool
The new Casino should be located out at Northwest Boulevard, and Interstate 80. The State is just about done modernizing the ramp there, the industrial park in the NE quadrant there has been a failure, and the Casino would fill up that vacant land. The railroad is located just to the north of the industrial park, so they could make that an Amtrack stop to bring gamblers to Davenport.
I've often thought that having bus loads of tourists passing the prostitutes and drug dealers in the downtown area does nothing for promoting Davenport. If they see such goings on during the bus trip, they are unlikely to venture off the boat to make a purchase or by a sandwich. They just stay on the boat to not have to be confronted by the homeless or low lifes that hang downtown.
Some real positive folks around today...
I don't think I've ever seen a prostitute in the downtown core, certainly not east of Ripley. Homeless people are part of any real city, and most people can accept that.
QCI, you don't go to the downtown area for the same thing these guys go there. These other posters seek out those services. How else would they know?
Nitrous55
Too bad you are blind in one eye, and can't see out of the other Nitrous. If the Democratic free health care plan passes, you can get that fixed. Then you won't have to wear those rose colored glasses anymore.
I don't think its a matter of rose-colored glasses for Nitrous as much as you wearing some sort of filth-covered glasses that make Davenport seem far worse than it is. Maybe you should take those off and look around to realize you live in a pretty decently place. Or you could always move. I always hear the grass is greener elsewhere...
Christ, 4:27, what Davenport are you living in? It's certainly not in the reality based one that I live in. I work downtown, and come downtown for concerts, drinks, and shopping on a regular basis.
NEVER, in over a decade of living here, have I witnessed "prostitution" or anything close to the Gotham-like description of a community that you paint with your acid dipped words.
Thousands of other people work, live, and have a good time downtown daily. Homeless problems? You mean the two guys you MIGHT run in to the so much as glance at you and move on? Oh no! What will I do, the scary man made eye contact with me!
It's beautiful down here. The River is great. The architecture is interesting. The shop owners are friendly. The concerts are plentiful, and the bars are fun. he people here typically care about the community they're in.
I don't know what parallel hell pit you're living in, but I'd encourage you to peek through to the other side sometime. It's a lot more enjoyable here.
8:02, I'm not judging you if you go down there for those things. More power to you. QCI just doesn't need to use those services.
Nitrous55
One doesn't have to be in search of a prostitute in downton to pass one. They are everywhere. You just have to be able to see. D-1 people and Image boy D-1 Whisperer can't see.
Why don't you help the police arrest them by pointing them out? It seems to me that would help solve the problem more than worrying what QCI does.
Nitrous55
And I don't think they are everywhere. The sixth ward doesn't have them. The residents there do something if there is a problem. They don't sit around complaining about D-1.
Nitrous55
You need to do some fact checking Nitrous. The downtown and it's prostitutes are for the most part in the 3rd Ward. The 6th ward is where the rich people live.
*face palm*
Please, just move. I beg you. I can't believe anyone with that kind of negativity could even stand to live another day in a place they find so vile.
Some of you guys are just hopeless.
What some don't seem to understand is that we all love living in Davenport, but we still can hate the cesspool of problems that seem to center around the downtown. We wish the homeless, the vacant buildings, the wasteful spending, the bangers and their grafitti, the ladies of the evening, and the x-felons weren't part of the real estate here. But they seem to be attracted to the downtown area.
Davenport is a wonderful place, but could be even better if the problems were dealt with.
Its great that you want to improve Davenport, but what is causing this disagreement is your exaggerations and misinformation about downtown. Downtown is not the place where Davenport's problems center around. Listen to a police radio sometime and you'll realize that. Downtown is also not home to any more vacant buildings than any other part of town, nor does it have a bigger problem with homeless than cities our size normally do. There are rarely "bangers" downtown, and the prostitutes generally get arrested west of downtown. So basically all of this stuff you're complaining about is untrue, and that's why people are jumping all over you about it.
6:29 is spot-on. When you compare and contrast the old downtown with our new shopping area on Elmore, it is clear where the worst area of town is located.
When was the last time you saw one homeless person, a pack of kids dressed in gang colors, a drug dealer or prostitute peddling their wares, or someone just released from Scott County loitering at 53rd and Elmore? The answer is: NEVER. They congrigate near the old downtown area, including the Shricker.
So you can spin it anyway you want to QCI, but those of us who pay attention arn't buying it.
Yeah......
I can't think of a single person that was shot and killed right in front of IHOP. Whereas there have been at least 60 murders at the Figge this year...
3:38, I use the sixth ward as an example. They do not put up with the problems. You think the downtown has a problem? What are you going to do about it? Let it be or fix it? I think I know the answer. You have been saying the same thing for years.
Same thing as the Elmore comparison. The problems get taken care of out there. You have had several chances to change things and you didn't do one thing.
One thing about this Saturday morning. There will be a parade in the downtown. I don't want any of you to get upset seeing all those hookers and drug dealers lining the streets.
Nitrous55
"When was the last time you saw one homeless person.......at 53rd and Elmore?"
Gee, I see them out there begging for $$ (with their signs) all the time.
When was the last time you saw ... a pack of kids dressed in gang colors.... at 53rd and Elmore?"
Ever gone to the mall?
"When was the last time you saw one homeless person, a pack of kids dressed in gang colors, a drug dealer or prostitute peddling their wares, or someone just released from Scott County loitering at 53rd and Elmore? The answer is: NEVER. They congrigate near the old downtown area, including the Shricker."
Not that I agree with ANY of this statement, but what would be the difference between Davenport and any other city of it's size?
Hell, you think Dport is so bad, come down to New Orleans where I'm temporarily working. I'll show you homeless people, drunks, etc. And its population is the same as the QC area.
Worst than having nothing good to say about the city, is that they live in the city that they hate so much.
Nitrous55
Losing Blackhawk sucks, but it would have been throwing good money at bad. It was finished as a business, sorry to say.
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